Burnt out

"Burned out" is the everyday term for a condition that experts call burnout. Anyone who feels burned out is physically, mentally, and emotionally drained. Their batteries are completely depleted, and they can no longer recharge over a weekend or a vacation.

The term was coined by the American psychotherapist Herbert Freudenberger in the 1970s, initially to describe people in the helping professions who wear themselves out caring for others. Today, this feeling affects parents just as much as caregivers, especially when a child requires a great deal of care and attention for months on end.

Burnout is not listed as a separate illness in the international diagnostic manual. In the ICD-10, it appears under Z73 as a factor influencing health—that is, as a stressful situation. Nevertheless, the term accurately describes what it feels like to be constantly overwhelmed.

Experts categorize the symptoms into three areas:

• Emotional exhaustion: The feeling of being drained and hollowed out. Even the thought of the next day saps one’s energy. This is often accompanied by sleep disturbances, headaches, backaches, or stomachaches.
• Emotional Detachment and Cynicism: A parent withdraws emotionally, reacts irritably or with apathy, and becomes indifferent to things that used to be important. Experts also refer to this as depersonalization.
• Declining performance: Concentration and memory deteriorate, simple tasks pile up, and the feeling of being unable to accomplish anything grows.

When these three areas occur together and rest no longer resolves them, experts refer to the clinical picture of burnout. Some parents simply describe it as “being at the end of their rope.”

Emotional exhaustion is considered the central characteristic. The inner detachment and decline in performance often develop later. A warning sign is when a free weekend barely recharges one’s batteries and the fatigue is already back by Monday.

The driving force behind burnout is chronic stress. During short-term stress, the body shifts into high gear and then winds down again. If the stress persists for weeks or months, the body remains on high alert. Levels of the stress hormone cortisol remain elevated, and the body struggles to relax.

Without periods of recovery, physical symptoms appear first: muscle tension, sleep problems, and increased susceptibility to infections. If the strain continues, the risk increases that it will develop into burnout or a mental or physical illness.

For parents, this constant strain often stems not from their jobs but from everyday family life: getting up at night, appointments with doctors and therapists, worrying about a sick or troubled child—all while managing their own paid work. Many demands at once, little rest, and hardly any recognition. It is precisely this combination that wears people down.

Added to this are often conflicting expectations: being there for the sick child, not neglecting the siblings, performing well at work, and maintaining the relationship. Anyone who tries to please everyone and pushes past their own limits in the process gradually depletes their reserves of energy. No one is to blame. Burnout is the body’s response to stress that has been too intense for too long.

Burnout and depression are related and overlap, but they are not the same thing. This has implications for finding the right kind of help.

With burnout, symptoms usually revolve around a specific source of stress—often the situation that is draining you. If this situation improves, the feelings may subside. Depression, on the other hand, casts a gray veil over all areas of life: low mood, lack of motivation, loss of interest and joy, and often feelings of guilt, worthlessness, or thoughts of no longer wanting to live.

A feeling of burnout can also be a precursor to or a consequence of depression. It’s difficult to tell from the outside where one ends and the other begins. This distinction should be left to professionals, because depression requires targeted treatment.

A few things can help early on:

• Take warning signs seriously instead of brushing them aside. Persistent exhaustion is a sign, not a minor issue.
• Build regular moments of respite into your daily routine, no matter how small: a walk, a phone call to a friend, half an hour without any tasks.
• Share the load. Who’s handling what? What can a second person, grandparents, or a counseling center take over?

If small steps aren’t enough, if the symptoms persist for weeks, or if low mood and dark thoughts set in, that’s a reason to seek medical help. The first point of contact is your family doctor’s office, which will examine you, rule out other causes of exhaustion, and refer you to a psychotherapist or psychiatrist. Your health insurance provider can also list counseling centers in your area.

As a parenting coach, Janike helps you sort through your stress and find relief. Diagnosis and treatment of burnout or depression should be handled exclusively by a medical or psychotherapeutic specialist; for children, this should be done by a child and adolescent psychiatrist.